The Life of Philosophy

30 November 2023

The Life of Philosophy

A few days ago I listened to a brief youtube that was an ‘Introduction’ to Metaphysics.  It lasted about 30 minutes.  The presentation covered the main metaphysical views and philosophers, including Platonism.  Given the short amount of time it naturally was not very thorough.  But it touched on materialism, Platonism, pantheism, monotheism, monism, pluralism, Kantian metaphysics, and a few others. 

The presentation consisted of a series of statements that defined each metaphysical view or system.  If you agreed with them that would make you, for example, a materialist or pantheist.  It felt very much like a standard textbook approach to metaphysics.

What was missing was a discussion of what I refer to as ‘practice’ by which I mean what someone has to do in their daily life to be considered a participant in a particular metaphysical tradition.  This is the missing part of Western philosophy. 

It was Pierre Hadot who first pointed out to me that this part is missing from Western philosophy and that this practice component was a central part of Ancient Philosophy.  Coming across Hadot’s works was significant for me because they helped me to understand the nature of the chasm between Ancient or Classical Philosophy and modern Western Philosophy.

This is when I started to think of Platonism as a Dharmic tradition; or more accurately, that it is helpful to approach Platonism in the way we would approach a Dharmic tradition because the way Platonism functioned in the Classical World closely resembles the way Dharmic traditions function in India.  To give an example, a Jain philosopher is also someone who is committed to the basic practices of Jainism and lives a life in accordance with Jain precepts.  It is because the Jain philosopher lives such a life that he can fruitfully philosophize about the Jain tradition.  This also applies to Buddhism where Buddhist philosophers have, until very recently, almost always been monastics committed to the precepts and ways that such a life entails.  And this also applies to Hinduism in its various manifestations; examples include Shankara and in Saivism the great teacher Abhinavagupta. 

But in Western philosophy the idea that there should be a practice component out of which the philosophy emerges, and in which the philosophy is grounded, is absent.  There is no group of pantheistic precepts that adherents are normally thought of as committed to.  The same can be said of materialism, and other Western metaphysical traditions. 

My feeling is that the Platonic tradition in the Classical period was grounded in such a recognizable ‘way of life.’  When I say ‘recognizable’ I mean that it was widely understood by ordinary people that to be, for example, a Platonist meant that you would embody that philosophical commitment in way-of-life commitments which in Platonism consisted of a series of ascetic practices including vegetarianism/veganism, refraining from alcohol, refraining from charging for teachings, refraining from harming others, refraining from sexual misconduct which could evolve into a chaste life, regularly practicing contemplation, regularly studying and deepening one’s understanding of Platonic works such as the Dialogues of Plato, and so forth.  It is the recovery of what I think of as the preceptual foundation, or the way-of-life foundation, that is the task of contemporary Platonists.

Recovering this way of life foundation is a challenge, but fortunately the specifics of this way of life are available in the primary documents of the Platonic tradition.  You can find them in dialogues like Phaedo and in many other portions of the Dialogues and the Enneads.  Because modern Western philosophy does not have a foundation in these kinds of practices there is a tendency to pass over those passages in the Platonic tradition that speak directly, or indirectly, of these kinds of commitments.  The tendency is to think of Platonism as solely an intellectual (but not in the sense of ‘nous’) endeavor in the way that, for example, understanding Kant or Hume is an intellectual endeavor.  I know that when I took seminars on Plato at University these passages were simply not discussed.  We need to refocus our attention when reading these works on these passages that regard philosophy as entailing way of life commitments and bring them into the foreground.

Some individuals are already doing this.   At this time they are scattered, but the internet has created the opportunity for contact and mutual encouragement.  The task will take time and it will meet with resistance because the view that philosophy consists only of intellectual analysis and dispute is deeply help in the academy.  Still, I am encouraged that the possibility of reconnecting with philosophy, and with Platonism specifically, as a way of life that entails specific commitments in the way that Dharmic traditions do, is emerging.  It is like the first green leaves that push through the snow in early Spring.  When we see these fresh green leaves, we know that a season of flourishing is forthcoming.